Pitching & Throwing - Lower Half Landing Position

What position should you be in when your front foot lands in the pitching motion? Roy Halladay discusses the importance of landing in a straight line to your target, keeping your foot slightly closed, and keeping your landing knee slightly inside of your landing foot. This will allow you to be in a power position and in a quality landing position and follow through when pitching.I'm Roy Halladay with insidebaseball.com. Today we're going to talk about the lower half landing position. There's a couple key things that we want to think about as pitchers when we're in our landing position. Obviously the first that, every coach talks about, is being in a straight line. That straight line goes off the ball of our toe. So the ball of my toe and the tip of my toe here should be in a straight line towards home plate. Now if you notice my front foot, it's slightly closed. The key to this is having my knee inside my leg, otherwise I lose my power. It's the same thing as a hitter. They want their power inside that knee to keep that strong base. Same thing pitching. If my knee gets out here, my foot opens up, I fall off to the side, I lose my core strength, I lose my balance. So when I'm landing I want to land soft on the ball of my foot or either flat-footed, slightly closed knee inside of my foot in that straight line. That'll keep my hips closed, everything closed. And from there my hip's open. Everything comes through after that point. But it's very important. Draw yourself a line, work on getting that foot slightly closed, knee inside of your foot. That is the power position and the landing position that you need to be in to have a quality finish, quality follow-through, and be able to get your lower half engaged. So that is the landing position for pitchers.

What position should you be in when your front foot lands in the pitching motion? Future Hall of Fame candidate Roy Halladay discusses the importance of landing in a straight line to your target, keeping your foot slightly closed, and keeping your landing knee slightly inside of your landing foot. This will allow you to be in a power position and in a quality landing position and follow through when pitching. The ability to land correctly will not only give you a chance to reach your maximum velocity and potential, but it will also give you the best chance at protecting your arm.

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Instructor

Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay, nicknamed "Doc", is a former professional baseball player who pitched in Major League Baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies between 1998 and 2013. His nickname, coined by Toronto Blue Jays announcer Tom Cheek, is a reference to Wild West gunslinger "Doc" Holliday.
He was the Blue Jays' first draft selection in the 1995 Major League Baseball Draft, the 17th pick overall, and played for the team from 1998 through 2009, after which he was traded to Philadelphia. Halladay is known for his ability to pitch deep into games effectively and, at the time of his retirement, was the current active major league leader in complete games with 67, including 20 shutouts.
On May 29, 2010, Halladay pitched the 20th perfect game in MLB history, beating the Florida Marlins by a score of 1–0. On October 6, 2010, in his first post-season start, Halladay threw the second no-hitter in MLB postseason history (Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series being the first) against the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS. It was his second no-hitter of the year (following the May 29 perfect game), making Halladay the fifth pitcher in major league history (and the first since Nolan Ryan in 1973) to throw multiple no-hitters in the same season. During the 2012 season, he became the 67th pitcher to record 2,000 strikeouts. Halladay is also one of only five pitchers in MLB history to win the Cy Young Award in both the American and National Leagues. More Videos of Roy Halladay